


Cross Your Bones

by burymeonpluto



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ghost Hunters, M/M, Vanitas swears a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 08:36:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21115868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burymeonpluto/pseuds/burymeonpluto
Summary: In which Riku and Vanitas explore an old, abandoned hospital in order to catch a ghost, but the only thing they catch is feelings.





	Cross Your Bones

  
  
  
“What the fuck—what the _fuck_ was that!? Reeks, if this is your idea of a joke I’m gonna feed you to the demon in the basement!”

Riku doesn’t know whether to laugh or scream as he runs after the wild swinging of Vanitas’s flashlight, already several meters ahead. “It’s not me!” He breathlessly assures, to which Vanitas responds simply:

“Fuck!”

Riku points his own light behind them. The hospital corridor is empty, dusty, and dark; and covered in bad graffiti. Doors line the walls, teeming with shadows and tendrils of the unknown. Before the place was abandoned over a decade ago, staff would often speak of shadow people lurking around corners and peeking through doorways. The booming, metallic clang he and Vanitas just heard springs to mind again, and Riku finds that he can run just a bit faster.

He sprints through the entranceway to the third floor common area and immediately collides with Vanitas. They both go crashing to the rotten tile floor in a graceless heap, flashlights and cameras skittering across the room somewhere. The lights flicker off, leaving nothing but dark.

Vanitas rolls over and punches his shoulder. “Is this your idea of a joke, asshole?!”

Riku clamps his hand over Vanitas’s mouth. “Shh.” He can’t see Vanitas’s eyes in the darkness, but he feels that face scrunch up into a snarl beneath his touch. Riku listens to the crumbling hospital. No clanging doors. No disembodied footsteps. No shrill laughter of a vindictive poltergeist. Just him and Vanitas, laying on the floor and panting into the dark. Riku’s own panicked heart is still thumping in his throat. He can clearly feel Vanitas’s beating against the press of their chests.

A stone cold silence. Nothing. They must’ve imagined it. Riku sighs in relief.

And then Vanitas licks his hand.

“Eugh!”

“This equipment is expensive, idiot!” He scolds in a harsh whisper.

Riku wipes the residual spit onto his shirt. “Says the guy who bolted first. I’ve never seen you run so fast.”

“_You’re_ the one too busy running for your life to pay any attention!” Vanitas pokes his chest. Riku can imagine that glare clearly in his mind’s eye, despite the pitch darkness. “You could’ve crushed me _and_ the camera equipment, you fucking lurch!”

He leans down until he can feel Vanitas’s ragged breath lash at his face. “You don’t usually complain about me being on top of you, pipsqueak.”

Vanitas instantly twists his hips upwards, throwing Riku off and into the dirt—and god knows what else could be on this floor. “Where the fuck is my flashlight?” He mutters, probably groping helplessly around in the dark.

Riku stands and dusts himself off. It’s so damn dark in here. He can’t see a thing. Why does paranormal investigation always have to be in the middle of the night? And _why_ did the town decide to board up most of the windows in this place?!

“Got it!” Vanitas calls in victory. A beam of yellow light shines against the far wall, and then directly into Riku’s eyes.

“Hey.” He holds up a hand to block the offending light.

Vanitas cocks his hip. “It’s the least you deserve.”

“I caught your complete freak-out on camera, you know.”

He holds the flashlight beneath his chin. The shadows on his face make his scowl far more menacing than it has any right to be. “And I’ve got your girlish shriek on the audio recording.”

“I didn’t—”

Vanitas gives him a look that clearly says: ‘_Bet_.’

Riku sighs. It’s a futile argument. “Never mind. Did you find my flashlight?”

“Find it yourself,” he huffs, despite simultaneously sweeping his own light along the floor until he comes across it. He flicks it back on and presents it to Riku. “Here.”

“Thanks,” he says, and they both begin the search for the fallen cameras. “So, What the hell was that noise?”

“Sounded like a door slamming shut.”

“It could’ve been the wind.”

Vanitas points his flashlight back at him. “Do you feel any fucking wind up here, Sherlock?”

“I’m just saying— we don’t know. This place is falling apart. Lots of old building noises.”

“Yeah, it’s a real shit house,” he grumbles, finally picking a pair of cameras from the floor. He holds the flashlight in his teeth as he methodically looks them over for damage. “Looks like we’re good.”

Riku stands close, peering over his shoulder. “Did either of us catch the source of the noise?”

“I doubt it.”

“That’s our luck,” he sighs.

“The worst around.” Vanitas hands him a camera, fingers still warm with panicked blood flow. “We going back in there?”

“Will you ever let me live it down if I say no?”

That wicked grin, thin like a knife blade. How many times has Riku seen it through the soft glow of their dissipated flashlights? From over the edge of a bright laptop screen as they’re digging through a night’s footage? Over a year of dumb ghost hunting adventures and getting the absolute shit scared out of him by a weird shadow or a passing breeze? Vanitas leers closer. “Never. I’ll even bring it up when you’re on your death bed.”

“At least you’re consistent,” Riku grumbles, but he can’t deny the smile on his face. “Let’s go, then.”

They ease back through the entranceway, lights and cameras at the ready. The corridor is just as desolate and ruined as it was before. The hair on Riku’s arms stands on-end. It’s significantly colder in here than in the common room.

Vanitas pulls his jacket closer, clearly feeling it too. The beam of his flashlight lingers on each darkened doorway. “This used to be the psych ward, right?” he asks, and Riku nods to confirm. “I don’t know if it’s classic or cliché.”

Shoes crunch noisily over old leaves and crumbled drywall. “A psychosis can imprint your nightmares onto your reality. If there’s no line between real and unreal, then why should there be one between life and death?”

“Thanks for that, Hemingway,” Vanitas mutters. “I’ll be sure to put it on your tombstone.”

“If I die first I’m haunting the shit out of you.”

“Same.”

“You’ll need a priest to get rid of me.”

And he hears Vanitas smirk. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Riku creeps down the hall alongside Vanitas and wonders when it started. When their berating turned to teasing, and teasing turned to play-flirting, seeing how far they could push one another to stammer or blush. He wonders when he actually started to mean it.

Vanitas’s hand lands on his arm, halting him. “What’s that?” He has his light pointed straight down the hallway.

Riku squints through the dim light. “Looks like a toy train.”

He noticeably shudders. “Children. Great.”

“Backing out already?” Riku smirks.

“Not on your life,” he chuckles. “You got the voice box?”

“Right here.” He fishes the aforementioned black box from his coat pocket. It’s an amplifier that spirits can interact with and manipulate to turn shifting energy into sounds and words. But honestly, any ‘words’ that come out of that box are so clunky and inhumanly pronounced it borders on uncanny valley. “Ready to sit in the dark and talk to ourselves?”

“That’s the best case scenario,” Vanitas laughs. “Which room?”

“I’m thinking the one with the rusty door,” Riku gestures with his flashlight.

“Sounds awful. I like it.” And he heads for the door so casually, as if they _didn’t_ run for their lives just a few minutes ago.

The rusted door is shut, despite all the others on the hall being left ajar. They exchange glances. Vanitas is clearly thinking the same thing. It’s weird. Considering the sound they heard earlier, it’s even weirder.

But it’s not _evidence_. They don’t honor it with a comment, and push the door open.

The room itself is barren, with nothing but peeled paint and deteriorating concrete, and maybe an old metal pipe or yellowed scrap of paper —the remnants of what used to be medical equipment. No furniture. no weird cultist symbols. Nothing. No toys either, thankfully. They plop onto the dusty floor on purpose this time, adjusting their recording equipment appropriately. Riku takes care to position his camera just so. If he’s going to be combing through hours of footage later, he might as well catch Vanitas from a good angle.

Vanitas sets their flashlights on-end, creating a wiry halo on the ceiling. He leans onto his hands, cranes his head back, and shuts his eyes. Bracing himself. “Okay. Turn it on.”

Riku hits the switch on the voice box, and the device lets out a piercing, metallic shriek. They both flinch.

“I fucking hate that,” Vanitas says through clenched teeth. Riku agrees.

Well. Time to sit in the dark and talk to the air. “Is there anyone here with us?” he chances. There’s no answer.

“C’mon. Talk into our stupid little box.” Vanitas pushes. Several seconds pass. Still nothing.

“Why’d you slam the door?” Riku asks on a whim, and the box makes a chirp.

Vanitas tilts his head. That hungry grin is back. “You trying to hide something?” Another robotic chirp. It still doesn’t sound like words. “Trying to hide from us?” This time the sound is longer and more garbled, but it doesn’t really sound like — “Sounded like ‘no’,” Vanitas muses.

“You think so?”

“Yeah.” He leans forward, elbows propped onto his knees. But before he can ask another question, the box makes more noises.

It sounds like mostly nothing, but Riku can make out at least one word: “Hair?” Vanitas only looks puzzled. “I know Vani’s hair is kinda crazy, but I’ve heard it’s just a family curse.”

He punches Riku’s arm. “Fuck you, starchild.” The silver star comparison again? Vanitas treats it like an insult, but really, if he’s being honest, Riku kind of likes it. Compared to Vanitas’s mane of midnight sky, Riku will take the allusion with grace.

The voice box groans, and it only vaguely sounds like words. “_No_,” and feedback, and “_mine_,” and static. And then, outrageously: “_cute_.”

Riku blinks. “What’s cute?”

“Definitely not you,” Vanitas scoffs immediately. “Everyone knows I’m the cute one.”

He can’t keep from rolling his eyes. “I didn’t realize there was a Cute One.”

“There’s always a Cute One.”

“And it’s _you_?” Even though it is. Of course it is. Not that Riku would ever _tell_ Vanitas that.

“Who else would it be?” he huffs, and Riku gives him a look. “The ghost?”

Riku shrugs. “Could be.” The look that comes over Vanitas’s face is either a scowl or a pout. In the dim lighting, it’s impossible to tell which. Riku makes a mental note to check over the night vision footage later.

“A cute ghost,” Vanitas scoffs. “Yeah, right.” And the voice box chirps again. “No? So you agree with me?” There’s no answer. “Okay, Ghost. If you think Reeks is the cute one, turn my flashlight off.” Nothing. “This one right here,” he indicates with a tap on the lens.

They sit in silence for at least ten seconds.

Vanitas shows his palms. That stupid grin again... “Well, there you have it.”

Riku rolls his eyes once more. “Do you want us to shut up and leave?” More silence. “If the voice box is too much, you can use Vani’s light for yes and mine for no.”

Ten more dragging seconds, and then Riku’s flashlight sputters out.

Vanitas is already halfway to his feet. “_Okay what the fuck!?_”

It doesn’t want them to leave? That’s even worse than it wanting rid of them, isn’t it? Riku laughs through his shock. “That’s new.”

“That’s an omen,” Vanitas mutters.

“It’s... harmless.”

A glare is leveled at him just as the door slams shut with another deafening boom. They both jump so high they’re already standing. Vanitas has his camera in-hand, at the ready to either run or record.

Riku stares unblinking at the rusty, reverberating metal. His heartbeat is lodged back in his throat. “I think that’s our cue to leave.”

“Yeah fuck this place,” Vanitas answers immediately. He snatches up the flashlights and voice box in an instant and bolts for the door. Riku isn’t too far behind, grabbing his own camera and scrambling after him.

Then they’re back in the common room, breathless once again.

Vanitas leans onto his knees. His hands are vaguely trembling. “The psych ward,” he gasps. “Why is it always the psych ward?”  
  
Riku stands against the dirty wall. It’s so much warmer in here, he’d peel his coat off if he wasn’t covered in recording equipment. “Don’t ask me.”  
  
“What happened to your beautiful poetics, Hemingway? You always have an answer for everything.”  
  
He watches Vanitas’s eyes glint in the shadows. Hopeful and nervous and flickering. “The… The patient room doors are all on springs,” Riku grasps feebly. “Most of them are broken, but that one isn’t. We heard it slam earlier, right?”  
  
Vanitas nods. He seems to accept that answer, even if Riku himself doesn’t. He straightens up, walks over, and claps a hand onto Riku’s shoulder. “Let’s go to the basement,” he grins, and Riku has the sinking suspicion that he just got played.  
  
“The basement?” Where the morgue is? Where there are several strong rumors of human experimentation? A hall of underground surgeries and plague pits and ice pick lobotomies? “_Why?_”  
  
Vanitas is smirking. Would he knock it off? It’s warm enough in here already! “I like watching you squirm.”  
  
“You’re all talk,” Riku scoffs. “You were ready to run as soon as the flashlight cut off.”  
  
He splays a hand over his chest. “I do not recall.”  
  
“Don’t worry, the camera footage will,” he gestures with the device in his hand, and Vanitas pouts. From up this close, it’s definitely a pout. No doubt about it.  
  
“So, you’re backing out?”  
  
“Don’t insult me. Let’s go.”  
  
Is that a beaming smile, or a hungry grin? Maybe it’s both.  
  
Riku follows that strange grin back down the stairs. He must be insane.

And the basement level is the stuff of nightmares. Old, decrepit medical equipment shoved into dark corners. Wheelchairs parked in doorways. Ominous, poorly spelled graffiti lining the chipped sections of paint. An entire wall of morgue drawers in the back room, some open and some not. A cold steel examination table in the center, nested in grimy plastic sheeting and wrappers for candy that’s been out of production for at least five years.

Riku sweeps over the space with his night vision camera. The footage is looking kind of grainy. “Well, this is the worst. Glad we came down here.”

“What, are you expecting a ghoul to come shambling out of the shadows at you?” Vanitas cackles.

“With an ice pick up his nose, yeah.”

“Lobotomies are through the eye socket, idiot.”

“Ghouls don’t know that.”

He just grumbles beneath his breath. Riku counts it as a win.

They take their time exploring the area, checking for loose boards or tiles or creaky hinges. Anything that could create a noise. It’s better to know what they’re dealing with before the strange noises happen. Before their minds try to fill the void of the unknown with the most horrible possibilities they can imagine.

Riku watches through his camera, following the trail of a rather impressive cobweb as it arches across the ceiling.

Vanitas falls in step beside him, so close their coat sleeves brush together. “Remember, you’re not allowed to run away.”

He laughs through his nose. “I’ve been waiting all night for you to leap into my arms like Scooby Doo.”

“Not at a weak ass haunt like this,” he grumbles, studying the morgue drawers from a distance with his flashlight. “You gotta take me somewhere nicer. Then maybe we’ll talk.”

“What could be nicer than an old abandoned hospital?”

“I dunno. A cultists’ den? Somewhere with a real demon infestation?”

Riku looks at him. “Do you _want_ us to get killed?”

“It would make for some interesting footage,” he shrugs. Maniac. He stalks over to the examination table and knocks the hollow metal. “I heard there was a vengeful spirit down here.”

“Good. I was just starting to get bored.”

Vanitas chuckles. “Yeah, you looked pretty bored while you were running for your life.”

“I was just following your example,” Riku counters, and slides up next to him. The table is dirty and spotted with rust. It’s cold beneath Riku’s hand.

They stand in silence for a moment. The standard procedure for vetting a room’s energy. It’s not exceptionally cold in here like it was upstairs, nor is there any overwhelming, sinister aura. In fact, it’s kinda musty. The kind of acrid decay only an old building can have. Riku can almost feel a sneeze forming along the back of his throat.

“Some vengeful spirit,” Vanitas sighs, knocking on the table a few more times. “I dare something to happen.” Riku glances at him. It’s hard to tell if he’s nervous or nonplussed. “Go on!”

Was that a click? It’s impossible to make out over the dying echo of Vanitas’s shout.

He doesn’t seem to notice. “Do it!”

There’s a quiet tapping, like nails drumming against steel, and they both become statues. It’s unlike any of the environmental noises they inspected earlier. Both flashlight beams dart over to the wall of morgue drawers.

“You hear that too?” Vanitas whispers. He’s leaning towards the wall, but still keeping his feet planted firmly on the floor.

Riku nods. “Yeah.” Hair stands tall on the back of his neck and arms. “What was it?”

“No clue.”

More tapping, and then a loud clanging and Riku’s body turns ridged as his light catches a rusty metal tray tumbling to the ground.

“Fuck!” Vanitas yells over the echoes.

More tapping and scratching. More movement. It’s in one of the open drawers. Riku uses his free hand to whirl the camera towards it. “It’s a rat,” he breathes at the sight of two familiar beady eyes. “It’s just a rat.”

Vanitas heaves a huge sigh. “A fucking _rat_!” Riku half expects him to throw his flashlight at it. His grip on Riku’s hand loosens a bit.

“Hm?” Wait. Riku glances down. Their hands are curled tightly around each other atop the cold metal table. He has no idea when that happened, but he’s not planning on mentioning it. He just takes in the meager warmth and thin, clammy fingers that he thought he would mind but actually doesn’t.

Vanitas suddenly stops fidgeting. Looks like he noticed. Riku is still trying to think of something snarky to say when both of their flashlights shut off to absolute darkness and Riku’s heart stops and Vanitas presses completely against his side. His grip has turned strong again. “Oh, shit.”

Riku feverishly taps the light against his leg, the table, fiddles with the switch. Nothing. It’s completely gone. “What’s wrong with this thing?”

He hears the frantic clicking of Vanitas‘s flashlight. “Beats me,” he says, as if he can’t get the words out fast enough. As if every utterance is an invitation for whatever is in this room to slither down his throat and into his heart. “Night vision still up?”

Riku pulls up the camera again. It’s dim, but he can see enough to navigate the pitch black room. “Got it.” He tugs Vanitas’s hand, the thought of not mentioning it completely vanished from his mind. “Come on.”

Vanitas follows his lead without protest or hesitation or disgruntled huff. They weave through a maze of garbage and debris, of cracked bins and water bottles and steel containers and desks long turned over to rotting wooden legs. Riku is sure he hasn’t blinked nor breathed at all since their lights malfunctioned. He wonders if Vanitas is the same.

They reach the stairs and take them two or three at a time. The landing on the first floor is dimly lit by the crescent moon streaming through one of the only untouched windows in the entire building. The glass itself is missing, long broken by wind or time or a rock thrown by a bored local kid; but it’s open and there’s light and Riku can finally breathe again. Vanitas stands panting next to him, clinging to his hand and leaning into his side.

“You okay?” Riku asks.

He only takes a deep, leveling breath and lifts up his flashlight. It turns on with a simple click of the switch. “Fuck.” It’s a laugh and a whisper and barely there at all.

Yeah, Riku thinks, that was a lot. This is definitely the most active place they’ve ever investigated. Probably. “I hate to break it to you, but I think we’re both cowards.”

“Yeah, we’re little bitch babies,” he laughs again, still hollow and mirthless. “Fuck this place.”

“You wanna call it a night?” A quick look at his watch reveals that it’s already past 5AM.

Vanitas only hums. “It’s your turn to buy breakfast.”

“Alright,” Riku sighs, and tugs on the link of their hands again. Vanitas makes the smallest sound as he realizes it. “Only because you’re cute.” And it’s not just silly teasing. He means it.

Vanitas seems to notice that, and his usual pale complexion turns the deepest shade of pink. Riku bites down on his lip. If Vanitas got a little more sun, he’d have freckles. “Told you,” and he shines the flashlight directly in Riku’s face again.

“You want waffles, Cute One?” he laughs.

“Fucking always. Let’s go.”

Riku pulls Vanitas along, remembering his love of blueberry syrup. How he always goes overboard with it after a particularly rough investigation. After tonight, he wouldn’t be surprised if Vanitas filled in every single square on the surface of his waffles.

  


**Author's Note:**

> Plot Twist: The Cute Ghost was real and it was Sora and this is actually fledgling supernatural sorivani  
(Am I joking? I wonder.)
> 
> This is less Buzzfeed Unsolved and more Skulduggery Pleasant but uh... that's fine.
> 
> @VaniVeniVici


End file.
